Blood Stains
by MrMasher
Summary: Berlioz, the Ninebreaker, must come to terms with the blood that stains his past. (A oneshot I wrote YEARS ago for a funzine called AC, Japanese. It has no baring or relation to my main fic Armored Core: Burning Path, but similar character elements are there. Figured it was worth posting here. I hope you enjoy! Please R&R!)


_This has to stop_ Berlioz told himself, the sweat beading on his forehead and shoulders. Sitting bolt upright in his bed, he slowly looked about his room, making sure he wasn't still dreaming. Once he was sure he was awake, he reached over to the small table lamp next to him and tapped it once, the soft glow instantly casting shadows about him as the bulb heated up. Grabbing the hand towel that was almost falling off the same table, he wiped his now cold face. The towel having been there, a necessity now, for the last two weeks. Once he was done with it he threw it aside, it not managing to even cling to the table edge this time.

Reaching above his head, he opened the small window that he tried most nights to keep closed as insects would fly in, but the heat emanating from his body now was too much to bear and the breeze was sorely needed. Shifting his weight, he slowly moved the thin covers off himself and slid to the edge of the bed, his feet quickly touching the floor due to the low bed. He'd personally asked for it, normally someone of his position would have wanted something more... grandiose, but it wasn't his taste.

Standing upright he felt his whole body ache, dull pain throbbing across his back, arms and legs, the price of who he was. He opened a drawer at the top of the bedside cabinet, the fabricated pseudo-wood sticking due to purposefully added imperfections, pulled out a plastic box and set it on his lap as he sat back down on the bed. Opening it he took out a half used plastic popper tray of small white tablets. Removing one from its pod, he placed it under his tongue and walked, plastic box still in hand, into the tiled en-suite.

Putting it down he grabbed a small glass on the sink, he filled it and drank quickly, the pill gone in seconds. Turning on the hot tap and letting it run for awhile, he stared into the mirror opposite him. The black marks under his eyes had been slowly getting worse as his sleep became more and more disturbed. There was a point where he would have ridiculed someone for considering sleeping aids, but now he was honestly thinking about it himself. Noticing the fog starting to build up on the mirror he put the plug in the hole and allowed it to fill. As the overflow started to gurgle he twisted the tap off and soaked the hand-towel to his left in the near scalding water. He rung it out and held it to his face, enjoying the warmth. After staying there a few moments he removed the towel and set it aside, the mirror in front of him was now completely obscured, the mist having condensed across the surface in no time at all. He ran his hand across it, leaving a clear mark through the opaque layer. His refection stared at him, not moving. It's face wasn't wet.

His heart stopped beating. He quickly closed his eyes and shook his head hoping it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Looking back up, his refection continued to stare at him, now looking down at him as Berlioz remained hunched over the sink. For some inexplicable reason his refection suddenly appeared to be wearing his formal uniform, the one he hadn't worn in many months now. Quickly patting himself down he could feel only his bare skin, he hadn't blacked out and put his uniform on in the intervening time although considering what was now happening he wished that was the reason. The refection tilted it's head to the side slightly, a smile growing in the corner of its mouth. Berlioz was frozen still, unable to move and barely breathing. "What the hell is going on?" he muttered to himself.

"You mean you didn't see this coming?" spoke the other 'him' softly, "You didn't think there would be some kind of consequence for everything?" Berlioz didn't move, he just stared into the mirror, completely frozen in place. "All the killing? All the lives you destroyed? Your shame and cowardice became you, the drugs couldn't stop it forever. You knew that." His eyes flickered quickly to the plastic box on the edge of the sink, full of various pain-killers, sedatives and more recently, anti-psychotic medication. His increasing dosage must have brought this on. "Don't think I'm just some hallucination, I am more than just that. I am the voice inside your head, I am that little part of you that you have been trying so hard to keep quiet. That little part that tells you every waking second that you don't deserve to be alive."

"Shut up!" Shouted Berlioz suddenly finding his voice. "You're just in my head! Leave me alone!" But he couldn't bring himself to look away.

"All talk. You know you can't stop listening to me. Not now. It's too late for you to not hear what I have to say." The other him continued smiling ever so slightly at him in the most unerring fashion. "You know, even though everyone told you it wasn't your fault, it was. Every one of those deaths was your fault and you could have done something. 35,000 people died because you were scared, because you didn't act, because you are a coward."

"You don't know anything!" Berlioz yelled vainly, because he knew what this refection was telling him. This was insane. Literally, he was arguing with a sentient mirror version of himself.

"Let's take a little trip down memory lane" And Berlioz felt himself going back to the thoughts he'd spent years trying to bury, the visions he'd spent hours dreaming of.

"Berlioz!" Shouted his group leader, "Get the fuck up and cover your team!" But why should he? He was pinned down, he couldn't move!

"I can't get up! They keep shooting!" Another hail of rounds landed next to him and he curled his legs upwards away from the open space. He saw Jennifer take a 12mm shell to the face, her head exploding and showering the men next to her in blood and brain matter. One soldier just stood and screamed as he lay in the mud against some metal barricading, trying to stuff the red mush pouring out of the hole in his stomach back in. Berlioz didn't blink, he huddled up in the corner of the ruined building just watching, his rifle in his arms.

"Berlioz where the fuck ar-" An explosion rocked him as a wave of fire ripped over the small group of defenders. A dropship carrying the refugees he was meant to be defending crashed practically onto of them, ripping the gate into the camp open. Enemies stormed past him, soldiers in black armour, packs of MTs with cannons blazing. The screaming and shooting went on for hours. Every single person was massacred.

"You see? Had you been at your position you could have killed the man who shot that dropship down. You let this happen. You let this thought poison your mind until it was the only thing that defined you." Berlioz could feel the pain in his chest. He could feel the hatred of himself spilling over as the images kept flashing over and over in his head.

"What the hell do you want me to do!" He yelled at the mirror. The reflection suddenly lashed out and was in front of him, squeezing his throat.

"I want you to pay! We, need to pay for our sins! The terrible things we have done and allowed to be done! You have allowed people to die and you have slaughtered thousands for petty money! You are a stain! A blemish! A wretched creature that calls himself a leader!" With that the reflection threw him through the bathroom door way into the bedroom again, Berlioz landing in a heap on the floor his ears ringing. "You sick man!" Shouted the refection that was no longer just a reflection. "You twisted thing!" He kicked him in the ribs, shunting him about the room.

As quickly as he had turned on him, he stopped. And squatted down in front of Berlioz, their faces almost touching as Berlioz propped himself up next to his bed, his back against the wall under the window. "I need you do what should have been done so so long ago." Berlioz just stared up at him, blood trickling from his nose.

"What is that?" He asked with a croak, the cracked ribs making it hard to speak. The refection opened up the jacket and reached inside, pulling out a standard issue sidearm.

"I need you to kill me". Berlioz just stared at him in confusion, the fact he was looking at himself was still not sinking in. "I think you want the pain of those memories, those actions to go away and never come back. To do that, I must die."

"And how... Do I kill you?" Berlioz wheezed.

"Oh you know the answer to that" said his other self, the same strange half smile coming to his face again. It dawned on Berlioz slowly, he knew exactly what this reflection was saying and he agreed. This monster had to die. Reaching out, he took the pistol slowly and held it for a moment. Pulling the slide back he saw the glint of the round in the chamber and eased it back forwards. He looked right into his own eyes, these ones not a dark green, but a jet black, a hole into which he kept staring.

He put the gun in his mouth.

He killed the monster.


End file.
